


Olivia

by GreyMichaela, Miniatures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Nymphs & Dryads, Tumblr Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3443873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyMichaela/pseuds/GreyMichaela, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miniatures/pseuds/Miniatures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's moved home after college, starting his new job as the English teacher for the small high school.</p><p>One day while grading papers, he meets someone he's known ever since he was a kid.  Only problem is, he's never seen him before in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Olivia

**Author's Note:**

> Collaboration between myself and Aaliya, aka Miniatures, written for the prompt "A is a dryad attached to the tree that stands in the yard of the house that B grew up in."
> 
> The ~~~ stands for POV shifts - Aal wrote Gabriel, I wrote Sam.

~ _tink_ ~  

Sam jerked his head up from where he was trying to concentrate on the horrific handwriting of his most difficult student and stared out the window. 

Nothing there. Just his backyard, empty except for the massive oak that shaded the house, close enough for Sam to lean out the window and slide onto one of the branches.  He hadn’t done that in years though, not since he was a stupid, reckless kid.

Sam sighed and went back to trying to decipher Laura's handwriting.

~ _tink_ ~

Sam jerked his head up again with a snarl. Some punk kid was outside throwing pebbles at his window and hiding behind his tree.   Had to be.  He bolted out of his seat and down the stairs.

No one was in the backyard when Sam burst out his back door.

"Throwing rocks at my house is not the way to get a decent grade!" he roared. 

Silence answered him, and Sam turned in a circle, his jaw clenched. "When I find you little punks, you're getting detention for a  _month_ ," he growled, and began to search the yard. 

No one was hiding behind the bushes, though, and no one scrambled out of his tiny gazebo at the end of the garden, and finally Sam spun to face the house, staring up at his window in defeated frustration.   And realized that there was a _man_  sitting on the tree branch outside his window, grinning down at him. Sam's mouth fell open.  "Who the hell are you and what are you - scratch that," he said, dashing forward. "Get down here, now, before you fall and break your neck!”

 

~~~

 

Gabriel had to laugh at that. "Sure, Sam, I'll break my neck."

He sprang to his feet, walking along the branch until he was at the very tip, balancing on a toe. Grinned wide as he watched Sam's mouth fall open. 

"How… you…"

"Eloquent, for an English teacher." Gabriel yawned. "It's taken me _weeks_ to get your attention, so I'd appreciate it if you picked your jaw on up off the ground."  

Sam shook his head. "What the _fuck_."  

"Seriously, you don't recognize me?" Gabriel walked back up to the thicker part of the branch, flopped down against the trunk with a hand over his heart. "I'm hurt.”   He rested his chin in his hand, watched the cogs turning in Sam's pretty little head. "Can't say I expected you to, though," he said, a little quieter.  

"Who… what are you talking about?"  

"Sammy-boy, it's been too long." Gabriel smiled. "It got boring when you moved out, you know.”

Sam frowned. Gabriel had missed that - hell, he'd just missed _Sam_ \- and seeing the familiar expression translated onto an older face did nothing to diminish the slow spread of warmth in his chest.   

"You used to sit right… down… there…" He twirled his finger and pointed at the base of his tree, at the smooth, grassy hollow between two large roots. "You'd read, or you'd write, or you'd just talk. Liked the sound of your own voice, huh, Sammy?" 

Sam tilted his head. Gabriel's smile widened, turned wicked. "I liked the sound of it too.”

 

~~~

 

Sam stared at the stranger, sprawled on his stomach on the tree branch and smiling down at him.There was something that felt so familiar about him... 

He shook his head as if shaking water out of his hair."Whoever you are, you're trespassing and you need to leave.” 

Gabriel snorted a laugh and slid bonelessly off the branch.Sam gasped and dashed forward, arms out, in a vain attempt to break the stranger's landing, but Gabriel wasn't falling.He was hanging by his knees from the branch, grinning impishly at Sam from upside down. 

"Goddammit, that's it," Sam snarled."I'm calling the cops."

He turned and stalked for the door and the branch swished.Sam spun just in time to see Gabriel let go and plummet for the ground.He twisted neatly in midair and landed on his feet, and Sam's mouth fell open again. 

Gabriel cocked his head, smiled at him again."Your favorite book was The Children of Green Knowe," he said, and Sam suddenly forgot how to breathe. 

"The descriptions of that lovely manor house, the terrifying evil of the old tree," Gabriel continued as Sam stared at him.“Tolly and Mrs. Oldknowe and the stories she’d tell. They kept you awake at night and you used to sit in my branches and read the happy parts over and over again to keep the scary bits away."

Sam found his voice.“ _Your_ branches?" he managed.

 

~~~

 

Gabriel laid a hand against the trunk of the tree, smiling fondly at it. "My tree," he said, "my branches. I'm a dryad, Sam, and this is my baby. I call her Willow… which she hates, seeing as how her name is Olivia." 

And okay, maybe that joke pushed him a little south of the credibility line, because Sam was giving him a _look_. A look that plainly said _you're insane_. 

"Give me one good reason why I should believe you," Sam said, voice low. 

Gabriel cocked an eyebrow. "You mean other than the _incredibly_ intimate anecdote I just doled out?"  

"You expect me to just _take your word for it_ that you're a mythological creature?"  

Gabriel opened his mouth, closed it again. "Fair point.” 

He sighed. Sam was twitching in that way he had, that way that signaled that he was one wrong move shy of stalking back inside and calling the cops. Which, to be fair, would do nothing except cost him the loyalty of said cops. Most police officers didn't appreciate being called to arrest a trespassing _tree_.  

Still. He had to play this right.He took a breath, and a step forward. "When you were eight years old," he said, "your brother told you that your mother died pulling you out of a house fire. He wasn't trying to say he blamed you. He wasn't even mad. You asked, and he told you, and you came out here.” 

Sam's eyes were wide, his ribs heaving slightly. Gabriel winced, but kept going."It was raining. Dean, your brother Dean, _he_ thought you'd locked yourself in your room, but you were out here. Bit of a dumbass, your brother Dean." Gabriel's mouth twitched. "You were soaked in seconds, but you didn't care. You climbed out your window and onto that branch and you hid in the canopy, clinging on for dear life. You were such a little idiot, I wanted to come out and put you back inside myself. ” 

Gabriel chuckled, took another step towards Sam. Sam only stared at him.

"I heard you muttering," Gabriel said. "You prayed to your mom, told her you were sorry. And you asked her to send more wind, to knock this old tree down with you in it. 'If I'm okay,' you said, 'then that means you forgive me’. ”

Sam let out a shaky breath. Gabriel wanted to reach out to him, decided it was best to take it one step at a time.   

"Now, I don't know if your mom was listening or not, kiddo," he said quietly, "but the wind kept coming. Didn't get worse, but it didn't get better either. You might've fallen, or maybe not." He shrugged. "But I made sure the branch never swayed. ”

 

~~~

 

Sam sucked in another breath of air, eyes riveted on Gabriel's slight form. _No one_ knew about that night.He'd never told a soul.There was no way this stranger should have any idea of it, let alone be able to tell him nearly verbatim what he'd said aloud, choking the words out through his tears as he clung to the trunk of the tree, wind and rain lashing his small frame.  

"I'm sorry I couldn't bring your mother back," Gabriel said quietly."I wish I could have.” 

Sam found his voice."You shouldn't know about that.You _can't_ know about that."He backed away, shaking his head, and Gabriel didn't chase him, watching him with sad golden eyes.  

Sam turned and paced the length of the garden, running his hands through his hair."Why?" he demanded after a minute, spinning to face Gabriel, who blinked. 

"Why what?" Gabriel said cautiously. 

"Take your pick," Sam spat, whirling away and taking another lap around the tiny garden."Why didn't you let me fall, all those years ago?Why did you care about me?Why did you get my attention now, after all this time? _Why_?”

 

~~~

 

Well. Weren't those all _excellent_ questions.   

Gabriel threw up his hands. "Capricious magical being? That do anything for ya?" 

Sam stopped pacing a moment. Glared at him. 

Gabriel wilted. "I'll take that as a no." 

"Yeah, you're damn right," Sam muttered.

He'd stopped perilously close to Gabriel, and the dryad could've just _withered_ under that gaze. Gabriel sighed again. "It's… would you kill me if I said I really didn't have a good reason?"  

Sam made a _face_ and pointedly didn't answer. 

"Okay, fine. Honesty. Honestly?" Gabriel shrugged. "Long and short of it is, kiddo, I _like_ you. Always have, always will. Liv's an old tree, and if nobody chops her she can keep going for a long time more. And I can't go too far from her… not much to do with a life like that except people watch. And… sometimes you get attached."  

Sam's expression softened a little. Gabriel took that as a good sign. 

"You were a good kid," he said, and dropped his gaze to the ground because jeez, he could _not_  handle this much sincerity in one day. "And I had a soft spot for you. I wasn't about to let you break your neck - and you _would_ have, if you'd fallen. When you moved out, it… it sucked. But dryads aren't supposed to interact with humans, we learned our lesson about pulling shit like that when the Greeks were in power. So what could I do? Couldn't even say goodbye."  

And oh, he hated the way his voice caught at that.

"But then you came back..." He lifted his head and smiled. "And I figured… what the hell?”

 

~~~

 

Sam rubbed his face, ran a hand through his hair, and turned away. 

He could feel Gabriel's eyes on him, watching him as he sank to the grass.He could feel the dampness of the ground soaking through the knees of his jeans, but he didn't move.It was too much, too fantastical to be real.Gabriel was asking him to believe that he was an actual _dryad_ , a tree spirit, had been watching him for years?It was too much. 

A tentative hand touched his shoulder and Sam tensed but didn't move.Gabriel's palm was warm and Sam leaned into the contact without really meaning to.

"You saved my life," Sam whispered, staring at the grass. 

Gabriel's hand tightened."All I did was keep you from falling," he protested."It wasn't that big a deal.” 

Sam turned, caught Gabriel's wrist before he could move, and _yanked_.Caught off-balance, Gabriel squawked and fell sideways across Sam's lap in an ungraceful sprawl.

Sam steadied him, arms snaking around the smaller man, and Gabriel struggled briefly but Sam's embrace just tightened and Gabriel sighed and was still, staring up at him. 

"I'm not talking about the night of the storm," Sam murmured. 

Gabriel's throat worked as he swallowed but he said nothing, honey-gold eyes wide as he held Sam's gaze. 

Sam leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together.He could feel Gabriel's breath coming in tiny, rapid pants, warm and soft against Sam's cheek, could feel the tremendous coiled power in Gabriel's solid form, but the dryad was making no effort to escape.He seemed content to lie there, sprawled across Sam's lap, their foreheads touching, and Sam closed his eyes just before he kissed him. 

It was slow and sweet, full of twenty years of emotion, and when he finally pulled away, breathing hard, Gabriel just blinked up at him, his eyes dazed. 

Eventually, though, Gabriel stirred and pushed himself off of Sam's lap.Sam let him go with a tiny sigh of disappointment, but then Gabriel's small, strong hand was there, helping Sam to his feet.   

"I've only ever seen your bedroom from the outside," Gabriel said, eyes glinting with mischief."Don't you think it's time to invite me inside?"


End file.
